Canada Green Building Council - Canada enters green building movement

New Appointments
Ian Jarvis, Chairman of the Board of the Canada Green Building Council, is pleased to announce the hiring of Alex Zimmerman from BC Buildings Corporation (BCBC) as President of the Council, effective August 1st.

Staff Announcements
Erika Mayer has joined the CaGBC as the National Coordinator for the organization. Erika will be under the general direction of the President/CEO and in his/her absence, the Executive of the Canada Green Building Council. Erika is responsible for providing overall support to the membership, Committees and to the Board of Directors. She will start officially on August 18th, 2003.

Vancouver, B.C. --- August 2003. Canada joined the worldwide green building movement with the official launch of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) in Vancouver, B.C., on July 31st, 2003, at a Green Build Celebration event.

Secretary of State (Western Economic Diversification) (Indian Affairs and Northern Development), the Honorable Stephen Owen, said the establishment of the council was an "immensely important step for Canada. The leadership that green building provides really goes to the very essence of sustainability.

"We have a lot of protected areas and talk about how important they are for sustainability and protecting biodiversity. But we can only manage sustainability if we manage across the whole landscape," he added.

"In Canada, 80 per cent of our population lives in cities. Buildings account for more than 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. A third of the energy consumed in Canada is used in buildings. Two thirds of the electricity is consumed in buildings."

Secretary of State Owen also talked about how environmental problems are of global concern and that developed countries in particular have a crucial role in creating and sharing green technologies to combat these issues.

"We may think in Canada we only produce two per cent of green houses gases, but we're subject to 100 per cent of them in the biosphere. The only way we going to solve these issues in any country, and in particular our developed countries, is to set our standards high enough so we develop the technologies to meet them, mass produce these and drop the cost to make them affordable to countries like China, Brazil, Indonesia and India.

"That's the way and that's the leadership that this group today is showing in terms of the technologies that are being developed for green building."

Chair of the CaGBC, Mr. Ian Jarvis, said the council is "a coalition of public and private sector partners from across the building industry in Canada working together to accelerate the advancement of green building across all aspects of society.

"These buildings are not revolutionary," he said. "They are buildings which work better, are healthier, more economical, and have less impact on the natural environment."

The council will be involved in certifying buildings through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, a building rating system adapted from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

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